Even though men desire sex, they criticize women for offering it, and since they cannot have sexual freedom, they do not allow women to have any either. The quotations around words like “wrong” reveal Solanas’s sarcasm and distaste for societal principles. For instance, in “Philosophy, Religion, and Morality Based on Sex,” she argues that for men, “‘wrong’ is sexual ‘license’ and engaging in ‘deviant’ ‘unmanly’ sexual practices” while for women, according to men, “‘wrong’ is any behavior that would entice men into sexual ‘license’” (Solanas). In addition, Solanas divides her manifesto into sections that show how men control society and disempower women. Her assertion seems brash and irreverent, but she uses her knowledge in psychology to establish credibility (she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Maryland and did almost a year of graduate work at the University of Minnesota).
Contradicting one of Sigmund Freud’s famous theories, Solanas leads the reader to believe that men actually envy women. After degrading men’s uselessness, she contends, “Women, in other words, don’t have penis envy men have pussy envy” (Solanas). Through her aggressive factual claims and calls to action, Solanas provokes her audience into challenging and acting against society’s unfair restrictions on women and narrow-minded notions of gender.īy presenting and analyzing aggressive factual claims, Solanas boldly reverses traditional views and appalls the reader into challenging society’s unjust attitudes toward women. Along with a systematic use of obscenity, her seemingly absurd statements actually build toward a specific motive: to shock both men and women out of complacency with society’s sexism. Nevertheless, readers cannot simply dismiss her manifesto as a crazy woman’s tirade. Shortly after her self-publication, Solanas shot and almost killed Andy Warhol, causing even more people to spurn her as insane. Because of articles like “How to Be a Good Housewife” and television shows like Leave It to Beaver from the 1950s, however, society still expected women to remain at home and nurture their families. Sold by Solanas on the streets, it came during a supposedly progressive era at the close of the civil rights movement and the emergence of the anti-war movement. 1 This radical manifesto declared that women must “overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex” (Solanas). In 1967, Valerie Solanas wrote and self-published the SCUM Manifesto, which called for male gendercide and the creation of a superior, all-female society.
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